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Stressed-out cabinet to unwind in Tuscan retreat

Italy's new grand coalition cabinet will hold a two-day retreat in a former monastery in Tuscany this weekend as it comes under pressure after less than a month in power, the government said on Thursday.

Published: 9 May 2013 18:11 CEST

Stressed-out cabinet to unwind in Tuscan retreat

Italy's new Prime Minister Enrico Letta (C) delivers a speech next to his ministers on April 30th at the senate in Rome. Photo: Andreas Solaro/AFP

Ministers will have to pay their way at what is now a luxurious conference centre near Siena, the Abbazia di Spineto built in the 11th century.

The closed-door consultations, hosted by Prime Minister Enrico Letta with 21 other ministers present, will start on Sunday and wrap up on Monday, the government said in a statement.

Letta said he wanted a "changing room" atmosphere at the retreat – like a football team.

The 46-year-old premier, who is one of the youngest prime ministers in Europe, faces a difficult balancing act in holding together his Democratic Party and its historic rival, Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party.

Ominously, the day the government was inaugurated on April 28th was marred by a shooting by a lone gunman outside the prime minister's office in which three people were injured.

Letta, a former youth political activist, has long been involved with the think tank world and is fond of US-style retreats, including by his own group VeDro which holds football tournaments during its summer gatherings.

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‘Worrying developments’: NGOs warn of growing pressure on Italian media freedom

They highlighted among their concerns the continued criminalisation of defamation – a law Meloni herself has used against a high-profile journalist – and the proposed takeover of a major news agency by a right-wing MP.

The two-day mission, led by the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), was planned for the autumn but brought forward due to “worrying developments”, Andreas Lamm of the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF) told a press conference.

The ECPMF’s monitoring project, which records incidents affecting media freedom such as legal action, editorial interference and physical attacks, recorded a spike in Italy’s numbers from 46 in 2022 to 80 in 2023.

There have been 49 so far this year.

Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office as head of a hard-right coalition government in October 2022.

A key concern of the NGOs is the increased political influence over the RAI public broadcaster, which triggered a strike by its journalists this month.

READ ALSO: Italy’s press freedom ranking drops amid fears of government ‘censorship’

“We know RAI was always politicised…but now we are at another level,” said Renate Schroeder, director of the Brussels-based EFJ.

The NGO representatives – who will write up a formal report in the coming weeks – recommended the appointment of fully independent directors to RAI, among other measures.

They also raised concerns about the failure of repeated Italian governments to decriminalise defamation, despite calls for reform by the country’s Constitutional Court.

Meloni herself successfully sued journalist Roberto Saviano last year for criticising her attitude to migrants.

“In a European democracy a prime minister does not respond to criticism by legally intimidating writers like Saviano,” said David Diaz-Jogeix of London-based Article 19.

He said that a proposed reform being debated in parliament, which would replace imprisonment with fines of up to 50,000 euros, “does not meet the bare minimum of international and European standards of freedom of expression”.

The experts also warned about the mooted takeover of the AGI news agency by a group owned by a member of parliament with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini’s far-right League party – a proposal that also triggered journalist strikes.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

Beatrice Chioccioli of the International Press Institute said it posed a “significant risk for the editorial independence” of the agency.

The so-called Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium expressed disappointment that no member of Meloni’s coalition responded to requests to meet with them.

They said that, as things stand, Italy is likely to be in breach of a new EU media freedom law, introduced partly because of fears of deteriorating standards in countries such as Hungary and Poland.

Schroeder said next month’s European Parliament elections could be a “turning point”, warning that an increase in power of the far-right across the bloc “will have an influence also on media freedom”.

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